INTRODUCTION
On the invitation of President Bill Clinton, Mrs. Ramos and I — together with a small official party — leave today on a working visit to the United States.

Our delegation includes the Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and senior members of Congress, as well as more than 100 leaders and representatives of our commercial, financial and industrial communities.

My party and I shall be visiting eight key US cities during our 14-day stay. Over that time I have set myself four equally important tasks:
FOUR MAJOR OBJECTIVES
1. With 13 other heads of state in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping, to consult on the problems and prospects of the Asia-pacific region in the post-cold war world.

2. With President Clinton, to chart a fresh beginning in Philippine-American relations — one that looks beyond the outmoded “special relations” to straightforward strategic and economic considerations — particularly to trade, industry and investment.

3. To bring the message — to the leaders of American industry in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle — that the Philippines is back in business at the heart of the world’s fastest- growing region — and to stimulate their renewed interest in our country.

4. To encourage Filipino-Americans — who are already America’s largest ethnic Asian community — to enhance their economic, social and cultural ties with their mother-country, the Philippines.
THE APEC SUMMIT IN SEATTLE
On President Clinton’s initiative, the APEC leaders will be meeting in Seattle, Washington, on 19 and 20 November to consider ways to expand economic exchanges, deepen regional interdependence, and maintain a more open style of regional cooperation.

Trade across the Pacific Ocean is already much larger than that across the Atlantic. By the year 2000, the Asia-Pacific region should account for just about half of global commerce.

Over the next several decades — into the so-called “Asia Pacific Century” — the countries of the pacific basin are likely to become the driving force in the world economy.

The APEC countries make up our most vital outside linkages. They are our largest export markets, our biggest sources of foreign investments and tourists, and our principal partners in economic and development cooperation.

In Seattle, we shall consult informally on how to preserve — and enhance — an open and integrated global trading system against the background of a dangerous deadlock in the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

I have also scheduled bilateral dialogues with some of the heads of government, to establish rapport or renew personal friendships.
A NEW CHAPTER IN BILATERAL RELATIONS
From the APEC summit, I shall be going on to Washington, DC for a one-on-one meeting with President Clinton.

Epochal changes in the world and in our two-way relationship have brought the Philippines and the United States to a new chapter in their long association.

Our security no longer needs the stationing of American forces on Philippine soil. Our ties of trade and investment have been largely incorporated into the regional and global economies.

And yet our relationship continues to rest on the same enduring foundation of democratic principles.

The United States continues to be our leading export market. American enterprises still have a large stake in our economy. And our two countries still share a strong commitment to liberal democracy, human rights, and individual enterprise.

Our government agrees with most of our neighbors that America’s continuing security umbrella in Asia and the Pacific region bolsters its peace and its political stability which the United States itself considers as critical to its own security interests.

Like the rest of East Asia, we have a stake in a healthy and competitive American economy — which encourages an outgoing united states to champion free, multilateral trade. We continue to need American technology, along with the specialized services of its educational, research and financial institutions.

For all these reasons, we need to place our two-way relationship on a sound new basis and to chart its future course in this new era our world is entering.

While in Washington, I shall also meet Vice-President Gore and the members of President Clinton’s cabinet concerned with foreign relations and economic affairs, key leaders in Congress, the President of the World Bank, and the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.

In New York, I shall meet with Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali of the United Nations.
THE PHILIPPINES IS BACK IN BUSINESS
To the American private sector, I shall bring a simple and clear message:

That the Philippines is back in business in the center of Asia and the Pacific, that we have enhanced our political stability and strengthened our representative institutions.

We are opening up our economy, levelling the playing field of business enterprise, and enlarging the participation of foreign investors, bankers, traders and industrialists.

My meetings with the leaders of some of the largest and best-known American corporations encompass a broad range of sectors — energy and oil and gas exploration, electronics and computer software, textiles and clothing, banking and finance, heavy machinery, telecommunications and delivery services.

I will tell them that — being at the geographic center of the Asia-Pacific region — our archipelago is strategically located for American industries that would tap the region’s consumer market of one billion people.

I shall also be addressing various US audiences of influence in the nation and in their communities. And I will be speaking to editors, journalists, and leading commentators from America’s mass media.
THE FILIPINO-AMERICAN COMMUNITIES
I shall meet with Filipino communities in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Houston, Seattle and Washington DC and their environs.

Since 1990, Filipinos have been America’s largest ethnic Asian people. By the year 2000, they should reach well over two million. But because they are fragmented — there are over 3,000 Filipino-American organizations throughout the United States — they have not so far projected a political and economic visibility proportionate to their number.

I have no doubt that their desired visibility will come. As gloria Ochoa, who was the democratic party candidate for Congress in Santa Barbara County, observed:

“Filipino-Americans have become a powerful group, without their realizing it. They form the backbone of America’s health-care system; they teach America’s children; they are scientists and researchers in the universities; they are artists and musicians of note; they are protectors of civil rights; they are historians and writers. But they are the last to be their own advocates.”
A NEW IMAGE OF THE PHILIPPINES
To sum up what I shall strive to accomplish in the United States:

— to establish clearly in the minds of key Asia-Pacific and US decision-makers and opinion leaders that the Philippines is once again a functioning democracy.

— to forge a fresh relationship between our two countries, based not only on historical ties and shared democratic goals but also on our mutual interest in a new pacific economic community.

— to inform the American business, financial and investor communities that we are completing a dramatic return to a free-market economy and that are once again a linchpin of the fastest-growing region in the world.

— to persuade investors, industrialists, traders and tourists to visit the Philippines for a new look.

I intend to leave with the American people and brother Asian leaders a better image of our beloved Philippines — that of a nation no longer divided, no longer unpredictable, and a national economy no longer stagnant and in disarray; but of a people united and determined to move forward under a resolute and democratic leadership.

Our visit to the United States has a crucial and difficult agenda. For its success, I ask your good wishes and your prayers.

With God’s blessings and your support, we will accomplish this mission. Until we meet again two weeks from now, we bid you all mabuhay!